OVER 2 YOU, 045 (30/08/01)

SHORTHAND SOFTWARE

A friend of mine is a writer and journalist but unfortunately he has quite advanced Multiple Sclerosis, and is unable to write longhand, and is finding using a keyboard harder and harder. He finds voice recognition software unsuitable (background noise problems) and unreliable. He can however still write in Teeline Shorthand at reasonable speed. Are there any software packages that will recognise Teeline shorthand that is entered via a pen & tablet?

John Coleyshaw, via email

Morgan Computers (www.morgan.co.uk) sell an A5 graphics tablet for around £30 that is bundled with handwriting recognition software.  I have tried this tablet with individual letters and full words written cursively with a good success rate. Unknown inputs are queried, so shorthand "squiggles" could be programmed quite easily.  I'm not au fait with the complexities of shorthand, but I'm sure that with a little tablet training your friend would be able to write in shorthand and the software will interpret the characters automatically.  Incidentally, this package lives on the PC as an additional pointing device, so the normal keyboard & mouse are also available when required.
Chris Costello,

Word Prediction" software has helped people who have difficulty typing,e.g. due to cerebral palsy.  It operates by making guesses at what you are starting to type and the benefit it gives is to reduce the number of keystrokes required to type any document.

I have experience of "Mindreader" which is a complete DOS word processor shareware from Brown Bag Software.  It may be found on the Internet (http://trace.wisc.edu/world/computer_

access/dos/dosshare.html#mindread) or I can supply a copy.

Keyrep is an add-on for Windows word processors.  I am not sure about its use with the latest versions of Windows. See Liberator, 01476 550357 or
www.liberator.co.uk.
G T Johnson,

UNION JACK FLYER

I have started to organise an event to be held in June next year to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee and I now want to prepare a flyer which has the Union Jack as a background or as a border. Can anyone suggest a method or DTP program that would all me to do this? 

Ron Taylor, via mouse

If you are using Word, you can create a watermark using the Union Jack clip art image. You will find this on the Office CD.

First select the paper size you wish to use from File, Page Setup, Paper Size (obviously Landscape paper works better because of the shape of the flag). Next, from the View menu select Zoom and then Whole Page.

Now go to View, Header and Footer and then Insert, Picture, Flags and you should find the Union Jack about 7 lines down. Insert this and click on the picture. Word 2000 annoyingly puts black squares around a picture, whereas Word 97 has white squares, which means you can easily move the picture by dragging it. If you see back squares, cut the picture then go to Edit, Paste Special, Picture, OK. Now resize and move the picture as required. Next right click the picture, select ‘Format Picture’, then from the Picture tab, then Color, and Watermark and finally, from Layout tab, Behind Text, OK.

Should you need to delete the header, go to View Header, press Ctrl + A (for all) and press the delete key.

Marjorie MacVicar,

The simplest and probably cheapest method requires little technical ability. Many stationers and office suppliers, such as Viking  Direct (http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/), sell pre-printed "Designer" paper, which is already printed with a background image and then can be simply over-printed with text. Viking sell a one with a Union Jack background, (catalogue number DC963), which costs about £5 (plus VAT) for a pack of 100 sheets. This works out considerably cheaper than inkjet-printing a full colour background would be.
Tom Wood, via email

I'm the chairman of an Anglo/French Twinning Organisation and our logo is the Union Jack and Tricolor crossed at the 'stick' end. My experience is that the Union Jack is very slow to print and takes a lot of coloured ink. Sometimes it is hard to get an accurate colour match. If Ron Taylor was to have a border of Union Jack's I think he may have the same problems. I would be happy to e-mail him our Union Jack if he wants to experiment.

Gill Hood,

SCRIPT WRITING

I have scoured the net for free software and advice for writing scripts for TV drama. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Spencer May, via email

The following landed in my Inbox from www.completelyfreesoftware.com:

'ScriptMaker is a stand-alone screen-writing tool for producing professionally formatted screenplays for film and TV. It features script annotation to maintain a detailed synopsis and also help navigate around the script, you can export to RTF, it includes an index card system, stores submission-script & shooting script as a single document, offers extensive Help file, sample script, and much more'

Derek Studden,

I would like to draw your attention to the short online courses we offer at the trAce Online Writing School.  We currently offer scriptwriting courses for writers at all levels.  Please see our prospectus for further details; http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/school/courses/tr151.htm for beginners
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/school/courses/tr173.htm intermediate level http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/school/courses/tr174.htm advanced
We also offer the opportunity to study poetry, novel writing, short fiction, new media, the internet and many other areas.  Please see the following URL for full details http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/school/courses/index.htm
Catherine Gillam, trAce Online Writing School
The Nottingham Trent University
Clifton Lane
Nottingham NG11 8NS
 Tel: +44 (0)115 8483533
 http://tracewritingschool.com

ARCHERS ADDICTS

We are moving to the USA in the near future but want to keep up with the Archers. I know it is broadcast over the Internet, but is there a program that will save this broadcast to my hard drive. Could I then use task manager to dial up and start this program at the right time?
Richard Hazelwood, via email

Further to recent replies concerning recording the Archers via the net, there is a 'propagation delay', which in Texas amounted to about five minutes, when I listened over there. I would suggest that this delay, could well vary, dependant on the 'web loading' and would of course play havoc with precise timings of any recording. 

D E Launchbury,

PAVING STONES

I have about forty rectangular paving stones in random sizes ranging from quite small to about 40" x 30".  I would like to assemble as many as possible of these to form a paved area which is roughly rectangular but without cutting any of them, if at all possible. Can anyone suggest a software package, which would enable me to enter the dimensions of all the stone slabs and would then calculate the arrangement for a best fit?
Dave Hanson, Talley, Carmarthenshire

Dave Hanson's problem is exactly one I had 36 years ago except that I had 96 paving stones and even that was quite easy without a computer. Measure each stone and chalk a serial number on it. Take a piece of graph paper with the edges marked out in dimensions and plot each stone.

Thus, if stone number 15 is 25inches by 30 inches, you go to the point 25up and 30across and write in 6.When all are plotted, sit back and look at it. The sizes will prove to be less random than appears at first sight, there will be lines and columns of stones the same width which can be assembled in strips. By simple inspection, you can select the few that are as near as possible to the length required.

When you have got as far as you can with this, cut out pieces of cardboard to a scale size of the remaining slabs and treat it as a jigsaw puzzle. This method is quicker and much more fun than forcing the computer to do it. My slabs came from the pavement outside the cells of Rochester Row Police Station!

Unfortunately we live in a culture where people think they must use the computer for everything, whether it is suitable or not…

Rex Boys,

CRYSTAL RADIOS

I recall as a child seeing plans in one of those 'Boys Book of Knowledge' type books for a 'Crystal Radio' set that didn't need any batteries and used a piece of coal for the crystal. Does anyone know where I could find that book, or the plans, perhaps via a specialist Internet bookshop or web site? Would a crystal radio work on today's radio transmissions?

Chris Sutton, via email

I have an old Ladybird Learnabout Book, series 634, ISBN  0 7214  324 7, called "Making a Transistor Radio". It cost 30 pence in 1972. In this book it has instructions on how to build a POW crystal set using a piece of coke as a crystal.

Gordon Ridgway,

A visit to: http://www.radio.mcmail.com/ , also know as The Vintage Radio Emporium, will be a real trip back into the past. There is a specific section devoted to Crystal Sets, books on "how to build them" etc.
Glenn Bukin,

You might find what you are looking for at: http://www.midnightscience.com  

Bas Keeble,

A crystal radio would be next to useless in today's crowded radio environment. It was very insensitive and relied on a very long wire antenna to pick up radio waves in the medium wave band at a time when there were few stations. It used a single tuned circuit, which is not selective enough to differentiate between adjacent stations. You would almost certainly pick up BBC world service (or your nearest strong station) across the whole band. I.e. it would not matter where you set the tuning capacitor it would always be swamped by the strongest station.

Regarding the crystal, you could have hours of fun (or frustration) trying to find a sensitive spot on a crystal (piece of coal? I've never heard that one) with a thin wire, the so-called cat's whisker. You would be trying to make a primitive diode. You can buy an excellent small signal diode from Maplin for a few pence - much easier. In short, useful as a learning aid, sadly now useless as a radio.

E.C.,

CAN YOU HELP?

In the USA there is a device called 'The Clapper' which enables you to turn lights on and off just by clapping your hands. I would like one but there is no UK version that I can find. The American version is the wrong voltage and I can't even get a US firm on the Net to sell me one for 'experimental' purposes. I found a UK site which sells kits to make your own voice activated relay which they say could be attached to a lamp but the instructions are beyond my limited technical capacity. Any suggestions?
John Dean, Headington, Oxford

I am a lecturer at a UK college for women. Each autumn term I receive requests from students to help them write farewell letters to former boyfriends. Surely this is a stylised art and a computer could spin out such a letter with the insertion of a few personalized facts? I am however unable to find a template or program for composing 'Dear John' letters.
Sue Sanchez, via email

I wish to include photographs in a small journal produced by photocopying for our local maritime history society. Until recently Letraset sold a transparent sheet that, when placed between a photo and a photocopier platen, resulted in a half tone picture of superior quality and similar to those of a newspaper. Does anyone have any suggestions for producing a similar effect, say with a sheet of dots, which could be inverted to a transparency to make a half-tone picture?

H. M. Hignett, via email

I run a Fantasy Football league at work using the rules and points from the Daily Telegraph, I have all the teams on an Excel spreadsheet. As you can imagine there are several entries with the same players. How can I make it that when I enter the scores on a Wednesday I only need to type the first score for a duplicated player and the rest of the duplicates will automatically be awarded the same points.  In essence what is the formula to copy a cell value to other random cells?  Bear in mind that this formula cannot be fixed as the player involved may be substituted during the season.

Colin Temple, via email